Backwoods Home Books and Handbooks

Eight books packed with answers to questions about Animals, Canning Basics, Food Storage, Gardening, Homestead Cooking, Homesteading, Pressure Canning, and Water Bath Canning. Order individual books or save over $30 when you order the set.

If you are familiar with our magazine, you will recognize most of the contributors to this cookbook. In this book we include recipes from 70 authors published in our magazine. Many of the recipes have been prepared in our in-office kitchen at the magazine and have been sampled by our staff.

A one-stop manual on how to prepare for a major disruption of society, whether it is caused by terrorist attack or natural disaster. Each chapter is a stand-alone article taken from the issues of Backwoods Home Magazine, making it easy for the reader to go directly to a topic of interest.

BHM's first fiction novel. It's about the off-the-map town of Hardyville, whose freedom-loving residents are doing just fine without big government's "help," and who -- mostly-- wouldn't have it any other way. It's funny, entertaining, and informative if you are a freedom-lover.

Making your own living and creating your own job is one of the most important things you can do to be truly self-reliant. This book has real-life stories of people who have made their own living doing what they love.

Self-reliant people have been gathering food from nature for centuries. Some of the wealth of information in this book is about gathering and using greens, wild asparagus, berries, cactus, acorns, and teas.

Extend your working, living and storage areas with low-cost outbuildings. Complete information on tools and materials; foundations and floors; framing, sheathing and roofing; windows and doors; wiring and plumbing; and finishing details. Specific plans for popular structures.

If you live in the country or suburbs, you've had water problems. Not enough water? Too much? Tastes terrible? The pump quits? The water's contaminated? No matter what, this book offers down-to-earth solutions in language understandable to all of us who aren't plumbers

This one-of-a-kind book will save you money, labor, time, and materials in building a small home, barn, or other structure. It is illustrated with plans, drawings, & photographs, and explains construction techniques.

Learn the art and craft of creating stone structures with the author's building instructions and his underlying philosophy that careful craftsmanship and time well spent during construction will repay itself many times over.

This practical classic is filled with handy advice on the best ways to plan and construct dwellings in any location, using wood, earth, and gravel. Includes instructions on erecting log cabins, slab houses, farm houses, as well as outdoor ovens, cellars, and more.

More than 20 projects with complete plans and instructions for building a wide range of structures. You'll learn the step-by-step fundamentals of general construction  from planning and laying out a site to do-it-yourself framing, roofing, wiring, plumbing, and much more.

While many pole building books focus on residential housing, Monte Burch’s Pole Building Projects features other structures suitable for rural and suburban areas. Burch’s fresh ideas offer something for every builder, from a storage shed or gambrel to a garden gazebo or swimming pool deck surround.

A comprehensive collection of 60 building plans for shelters that meet each barnyard animal's individual needs. Each plan includes illustrated, step-by-step instructions for farmers committed to raising happy, healthy animals.

Whether you're keeping one hen in a small backyard or 1,000 hens in a large free-range pasture, you will find the perfect housing plan in this comprehensive handbook. You'll also find low-budget alternatives for working with found and recycled materials and simple ways to make waterers, feeders, and nestboxes.

Whether your goal is to stretch the growing season or create a lush space full of greenery for a year-round hot tub, a greenhouse can add to your property value as well as your own enjoyment. This book guides you through choosing the right type of greenhouse for your needs, selecting a site and materials.

62 design interpretations of the getaway dream, with something to please every taste. All plans include sleeping quarters, working kitchens and bathrooms, and the small-footprint designs are all affordable and energy-efficient without skimping on comfort and style.

Paths, steps, and footbridges can transform any home landscape. Learn how to choose the best designs for your needs, define an outdoor living space, and realize your property's full potential. Detailed illustrations support project instructions; color photos throughout.

Making traditional bent willow furniture doesn't get any easier than this! With a few simple tools and these step-by-step instructions, you can create rustic willow furniture for your home, porch, yard, and garden.

Vicki Tate and Peggy Layton reunite in this newly released version of the best book there is on cooking from home stored foods. These Mormon women have years of experience and expertise behind them, and in this excellent book they will show you how to incorporate your stored foods into your everyday life.

Want to save money, and believe that a stove should do more than cook food? Learn how to buy a stove, set it up, fuel it for various uses, keep it clean and in peak operating condition. Dozens of recipes—bread that tastes as good as it smells, stews that gain goodness in hours on the back of the stove, roasting meats.

Using the easy, step-by-step instructions in this collection of hard-to-find recipes, anyone can make traditional and modern beverages, and create their own house recipes. The book offers more than 60 recipes for beverages using natural ingredients like ginger, sassafras, licorice, cinnamon, vanilla, citrus fruits, and more.

Whether you’ve never brewed before or you just want a simpler approach, the authors of Brewing Made Easy say: “Let’s skip all that beer-making theory and make some beer!” From brewing your first batch to creating new recipes—all the information you need to have is here in this step-by-step illustrated guide.

Members of the squash family are readily available for year-round eating  from summer’s bounty of zucchini and summer squash to the fall and winter sweetness of the acorn and butternut varieties. Here are 225 delicious recipes that bring all kinds of healthful squash to today’s tables

Ball Home Canning Products are the gold standard in home preserving supplies. Now the experts at Ball have written a book destined to become the “bible” of home preserving. From long-time preservers to beginners, this book would be a valuable addition to any kitchen library.

If you are familiar with our magazine, you will recognize most of the contributors to this cookbook. In this book we include recipes from 70 authors published in our magazine. Many of the recipes have been prepared in our in-office kitchen at the magazine and have been sampled by our staff.

Sweet winter squashes, hardy greens, root vegetables, and potatoes make local eating easy and delicious in the colder months of autumn and winter. Whether these vegetables are gathered straight from the garden, from a well-tended root cellar, or from the market, their delectable flavors and nutritional benefits pack a powerful punch.

Pickling is one of the oldest and most inexpensive methods of preserving foods. These wonderfully inventive recipes feature modern methods and equipment in accordance with the latest food-safety standards. This book also includes classic and unusual international ingredients.

Crafts & Hobbies

Creating a beautiful throw rug from scraps is easy enough for anyone to master. These 15 original designs from a variety of talented rug designers suit the skills of any crafter, from the newest beginner to the most sophisticated talent.

PVC is cheap, versatile, durable, and simple to work with, making it the perfect material for projects in the home, farm, garden, or workshop. Sanders shows us 101 projects such as greenhouses, planters, livestock feeders, containers, etc..

This is a very brief primer on firearms and children. While these 2 groups shouldn't mix, they often do. And what the author explains is that we owe it to our children to teach them about firearms and not make them "forbidden fruit."

Learn how stress and adrenaline affect the mind and body, ruining conventional shooting techniques under pressure... and how new techniques actually feed off that pressure to make you perform better under stress!

In addition to tactical aspects of self-defense, practical information like choosing the right firearm and ammunition, used gun purchases, and all legal aspects of self-defense with a gun are also extensively covered in this complete and authoritative look at concealed carry.

Author Gila Hayes shows you how to build awareness to avoid confrontations—and how to fight back when necessary. If you’re concerned about your personal safety and security in your home, in your car, in your workplace, and on the campus, there’s no better guide.

Learn safe, practical, and inexpensive ways to best preserve meat, fish, and game. Updated to comply with the latest USDA guidelines. An excellent resource for those who love meat but hate the chemicals in commercial products.

Root cellaring is a simple, low-technology, energy-saving way of using the earth's naturally cool, stable temperature to store fruits and vegetables. This book explains how to successfully use this natural storage approach, and is so thorough its the only book you'll ever need on root cellaring.

For anyone who hunts, farms, or buys large quantities of meat, this book is filled with information on the nearly-lost skill of butchering. Easy enough for amateurs, but detailed for experienced livestock producers, it takes the mystery out of slaughtering and butchering. 30 recipes.

This classic has taught generations of gardeners how to use the natural benefits of plants to protect and support each other. Here is a complete reference to which plants nourish the soil, which keep away bugs and pests, and which plants just don't get along.

This grass-based, organic approach to livestock management produces healthier animals, reduces feed and health-care costs, and maximizes profit. Includes case studies of successful farmers, details of every facet of livestock farming, and insights on how to work with nature instead of against it.

Dealing with unwanted deer is frustrating and challenging for even the most patient of gardeners and homeowners. Rhonda Massingham Hart offers environmentally responsible deer-control techniques that really work.

You can create your own backyard winery! Every step of the grape-growing and wine-making process is described, from choosing a sunny site that’s protected from frost to breaking ground, and from choosing a type of grape to harvesting and processing the grapes, and finally savoring the finished product.

There is no mistaking that mouthwatering aroma, rich with herbs and spices. This book is a combination how-to manual and cookbook. Learn dozens of ways of combining fresh, healthy homemade sausage with other ingredients to prepare hors d’oeuvres, sandwiches, pasta dishes, and many other treats.

This book introduces anyone owning (or planning to own) a small farm to both the harsh realities and the real potential involved in making a full- or part-time living on the land. Karl Schwenke's clear-eyed approach to the best farming methods covers a wide range of proven techniques and practical advice.

Here are 85 recipes for cheeses and other dairy products that require basic cheese-making techniques and the freshest of ingredients, offering the satisfaction of turning out a coveted delicacy. Among the step-by-step tested recipes for cheese varieties are farmhouse cheddar, gouda, fromage blanc, queso blanco, mascarpone, ricotta, and 30-minute mozzarella.

Join the urban and suburban chicken-farming boomlet and start enjoying the freshest breakfast eggs available. The author provides detailed information every aspiring chickenkeeper needs to know in this handbook that is practical and encouraging.

Discover the best and quickest methods for preserving every common vegetable and fruit, arranged in a friendly food-by-food format. Readers will find freezing, drying, canning, brining, and storage instructions thorough enough to encourage complete beginners.

The latest inexpensive, time-saving techniques for drying, freezing, canning, and pickling. Capture the flavors of fresh foods for year-round enjoyment and create a well-stocked pantry of fruits, vegetables, herbs, meats, etc. Included are techniques for all preserving methods, step-by-step illustrations, informative charts and tips, and more than 150 recipes.

Beginners will find what they need in this no-nonsense guide to choosing a calf, building and maintaining housing, nutrition, feeding, daily care, and finally, butchering. It you’re interested in raising a beef calf, Phyllis Hobson’s clear and unique guide will tell you all you need to know.

Butter, yogurt, ricotta, and other fresh dairy products have been made in kitchens around the world for centuries. They are not difficult to make, require no complicated aging techniques, and offer the home cook a wonderful range of tart, sweet, nutty, silky, and creamy textures and flavors. With the growing availability of local organic milk, now is the perfect time to bring fresh dairy products back to the home kitchen.

As more consumers discover the benefits of grass-fed beef — sustainability, good taste, and antibiotic-free — demand continues to grow. For any farmer interested in entering this profitable specialty area, here is the first complete manual on raising, caring for, and marketing grass-fed cattle.

Learn to grow, harvest, store, grind, and cook with nine of the most popular whole grains: wheat, corn, barley, millet, oats, rice, rye, spelt, and quinoa. It’s easy, and it takes less space than you might imagine. For example, with just 1000 square feet, a backyard farmer can grow enough wheat to harvest 50 pounds in a single afternoon.

Dehydrating is one of the most effective ways to preserve food for maximum nutrition at very low cost. Easy-to-follow instructions with specific time guidelines and best practices and the latest data on food safety make this the ideal dehydrating guidebook and cookbook.

Homemade cheeses easily surpass commercially made cheese. Home cheese-making supplies and equipment are now easy to find; the only other requirement is a kitchen. This book describes all cheese types, ripening and aging techniques, and the kinds of milk and other components needed.

This book guides you every step of the way from the field to the table. No detail is left out—from proper field dressing and butchering to storing and preparing your venison. So stop paying someone else to butcher your deer, with Gut It•Cut It•Cook It you can do it yourself. Save money and eat your own meat! Spiral bound.

Nothing tastes better than herbs fresh from the garden. Discover how easy and rewarding it is to grow your own! Simple instructions, tempting recipes, and beautiful full-color photographs by Saxon Holt will inspire you to grow, harvest, preserve, and cook with 26 of the most popular kitchen herbs.

A must-have reference, this book covers the problems and diseases common to chickens of all breeds and ages. Practical charts identify common symptoms and causes of disease, while an alphabetic listing of diseases provides advice on treatment.

This is a must-have book for all hunters and small-scale farmers who plan to process meat of any kind. Everything you need to know about how to dress and preserve meat is right here, from slaughtering to processing to methods of preservation. Detailed step-by-step instructions and illustrations guide you through the entire process.

Essential to the owner of pet rabbits as it is to the farmer raising rabbits for meat or fur. Breed selection, year-round care and feeding, safe housing, humane handling, and disease prevention and treatment are all addressed.

All the info you need to successfully keep your own honey bees. Learn how to plan a hive, acquire bees, install a colony, keep bees healthy, prevent new diseases, harvest honey crops, and more. Serves both experienced beekeepers and beginners.

Garden & Landscaping

Companion planting is simply planning your garden to take advantage of the natural friendships between plants. In Roses Love Garlic you’ll discover how flowers help or hinder other flowers, and similar interactions between vegetables and flowers.

In 1975, Let it Rot! helped start the composting movement and taught gardeners everywhere how to recycle waste to create soil-nourishing compost. Contains advice for starting and maintaining a composting system, building bins, and using compost.

Grow plants from seed and learn how to start your own shrubs and trees with clearly explained grafting techniques. The results will be bountiful, healthy plants and great-tasting fruits and vegetables.

Try saving seeds, it is a time-honored tradition—one that more and more gardeners are rediscovering. It can be as simple as growing a few extra peas or beans for next year's use or as challenging as wintering over cabbage heads, or waiting for the flower stalks to poke up in the spring.

Wide beds, organic methods, raised beds, and deep beds—Smith’s method makes it possible for everyone to have the best, most successful garden ever. By following his system you can cultivate deep, powerful soil that nourishes plants and discourages pests and disease. The result is fewer weeds, healthier plants, and lots of great-tasting vegetables.

Mulch protects soil, minimizes weeds, contributes to plant health, encourages earthworms, reduces the need to water, and cuts down on garden labor. This is a practical guide to using mulch in your garden and landscape.

Advice on planting, growing, and harvesting more than 40 Chinese vegetables and herbs, from the familiar snow pea to the exotic Chinese pumpkin. For every plant, the reader will also find recipes and tips for culinary uses.

Turn the compost bin upside down! The nutritious, organic diet your garden craves is as simple as creating compost heaps right in the garden. Plants and compost live together in labor-and time-saving harmony, producing bright, sweet, juicy vegetables all season long.

If you enjoy growing and eating vegetables year round, this book is for you. Eliot Coleman shows how several methods can be used to raise, harvest, and store a variety of organic, delicious, and healthy vegetables from the garden, not just in summer but all year long.

Discover the joy of homegrown apples, berries, plums, cherries, and dozens of other fruits with this definitive guide to creating a more delicious backyard! Lee Reich shows you exactly how to grow temperate-zone fruit at home, from site analysis and climate assessment through plant selection, pest control, pruning, and harvesting.

Tips and tricks, practical advice, and organic wisdom help gardeners grow the very best crops. This handy, in-the-garden reference includes helpful, uncomplicated responses to questions on planning and planting a vegetable garden, improving soil, caring for crops, controlling pests, and diseases.

Health

Did you know that a carrot a day could slash your risk of stroke by 70%? Or that ginger can stop migraines and nausea? This book uses information based on more than 10,000 scientific studies to reveal how you can use food to prevent and alleviate a variety of maladies.

For anyone who wants to become more self-reliant, more than 150 of Storey's expert authors share their specialized knowledge in gardening, building, animal husbandry, and homesteading. Learn how to milk a cow, sharpen an ax, preserve fruits and vegetables, clean a chimney, grow raspberries, and much more.

Choose the right products, process and market them effectively, and you too can join the ranks of top-earning farmers. Whether you’re buying a new farm or jump-starting an old one, with down-to-earth advice on planning, farming, and marketing, you’ll soon make your farm profitable.

Learn how to make and use hunting tools, utensils, wild game traps, mountainman clothing, powder flasks and horns, tents, deer-horn jewelry, and much more. Wilderness survival skills are also covered, with instruction geared to both novice and expert.

Jackie Clay revised and updated this classic on veterinary care. Included are ways to diagnose and treat diseases and injuries in livestock and pets. This book helps you to know when to treat your animals or what to check before you call the vet.

A one-stop manual on how to prepare for a major disruption of society, whether it is caused by terrorist attack or natural disaster. Each chapter is a stand-alone article taken from the issues of Backwoods Home Magazine, making it easy for the reader to go directly to a topic of interest.

Charles Sanders has produced this book filled with practical advice for those who aspire to own a small farm on a tight budget. How to find land, what to grow, livestock, food preservation, building outbuildings, determining water needs, beekeeping, etc. This book is a must.

This is a comprehensive “how-to” manual on all major wilderness living skills. Authors John and Geri McPherson are experts in hunting, trapping, tool building, archery, construction, and more. They don’t just foray into the wild for vacations, they live there.

With just a ¼ acre of land, you can feed a family of four with fresh food year-round. Simple instructions make it easy to enjoy canned, frozen, dried, and pickled produce all winter; use your own grains to make bread, pasta, and beer; turn fresh milk into delicious homemade yogurt, butter, and cheese; make your own wine, cordials, herbal teas; and much more.

The first must-have complete wood-cutting reference. On subjects from choosing the perfect chainsaw to safely felling, bucking, splitting, and stacking woods, the authors share their enthusiasm for the pleasures and rigors of bringing down trees.

Guides readers through the process of setting up a sensible home power system that takes over when outside services are interrupted. Also explains how to pack an evacuation kit, evaluate food supplies, develop a communications system, and use alternative heating sources.

Through detailed but easy-to-understand instructions, illustrations, and photographs, author DeLaRonde teaches the basic skills of forging. Here is all of the information you need to create artistic yet functional iron hardware and accoutrements for your home or camp

From cleaning up after a storm to trimming out-of-control hedges, chainsaws can make quick work of a multitude of landscaping jobs. But as helpful and powerful as chainsaws can be, they are also extremely dangerous. You need to know how to safely and confidently use one—and this book will show you how.

Despite the waning of interest in woodburning in recent years, Bushway adheres to the view that wood can still be a cost-effective and environmentally sound heating alternative. He provides information to help the would-be woodburner make intelligent choices in selecting, installing, & operating woodburning devices.

Well written, practical, and thoroughly researched, this self-published book is built on nearly twenty years of experience by the authors, who tell us about every aspect of dealing with excrement on the home-scale level. Everything is covered: privy designs of all types, sanitation, and composting.

BHM's first fiction novel. It's about the off-the-map town of Hardyville, whose freedom-loving residents are doing just fine without big government's "help," and who -- mostly-- wouldn't have it any other way. It's funny, entertaining, and informative if you are a freedom-lover.

179 things to do until the revolution. Some are serious, some are fun. Some will work for nearly anyone; some will work for those who are more radical. All of them will shore up the privacy barrier -- a barrier that has become nonexistent in places where corporate interest, the PATRIOT Act, and other legislation designed to keep up the facade of protecting our freedom and security has been dissolved.